[images sources, clockwise from top left: treehugger, transition guelph, quattro libri, can do better, idea porting]

I’ve long been a fan of the defunct 1990′s television series Northern Exposure (marathon weekend DVD viewings are where it’s at!). The tale of a small Alaskan town and its motley crew of eccentrics, from New York City-born Dr. Joel Fleischman (begrudgingly working on his residency in Cicely, Alaska as repayment for a student loan from the state), to Maurice Minnifield (a right-wing, bigoted, former astronaut), to the fiercely indepedent bush pilot Maggie O’Connell, whose love-hate relationship with Dr. Fleischman appears as a recurrent theme throughout the series, providing just the right amount of tension to keep things really interesting.

The remaining cast of characters, both ongoing and those making periodic cameos, celebrate a broad and diverse group of individuals. Widely varying ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, religions, and ideologies regularly brush up against each other, sometimes amicably, sometimes with palpable friction. One of my favorite aspects of the series, though (the dry wit and psychological musings notwithstanding), is how inherently communal the town is. Pairing immensely different people together in a tiny, isolated setting, the series celebrates the inhabitants’ similarities, hashing out their differences along the way, whether in feisty, animated town hall meetings, tongue-lashings on the streets (street?) of Cicely, or both hurling accusations and clinking glasses at The Brick, the town’s watering hole (and seemingly sole source of prepared food).

And so, when I recently came across the concept of Transition Towns , it seemed as though the concept of local, independent, grassroots democracy evidenced on screen in Northern Exposure had finally come to life, albeit with an ecological, sustainbly-minded bent. Founded in Kinsale, Ireland by Louise Rooney and later brought to Totnes, England by Rob Hopkins between 2005-2006, the Transition Town movement, at its core, addresses the concepts of peak oil (the period at which cheap oil availability will begin to taper off and eventually cease to be available entirely-the time frame for this is widely debated) coupled with global climate change. It seeks to aid towns, villages, islands, and even cities to transition from the way they operate today to a less oil-reliant model tomorrow.

Transition Towns addresses concepts of resilience and adaptation, from a grassroots level, invigorating local citizens to get creative about new models of growing food, sharing resources, creating alternative forms of energy, engendering a sense of true community through interaction between varying ages and outlooks, keeping local economies solvent through the creation and use of local currency, and fostering true cooperation between the local populace and the local, legally-recognized governing bodies. One of my favorite endeavors put forward by Transition Towns is the idea of shared land. If you’ve got some space but you’re not growing anything on it, why not open it up to someone who’d like to? Highly respected British chef and local food advocate Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall liked the concept so much that he took it on personally, working tirelessly to spread the idea over the whole U.K. (you can read more about his campaign here ).

CLICK HERE for the rest of Ashley’s post after the jump!

In a sense, Transition Towns serve as models of what local democracy in action should truly be, according to Hopkins, claiming that it’s the community that should be “driving things, making decisions, having a vision, and the local government’s role is to facilitate that vision. ” Two films, one brief , the other more lengthy (but TOTALLY worth all 49 of its minutes), provide immensely inspiring real-world examples of the over 275 locales worldwide recognized as official Transition Towns. In the longer film, a quote that really resonated with me expressed the goal of Transition Towns towards equalizing global technologies (and the advances they offer in healthcare, industrial manufacture, and so much more) with locally manufactured goods and services, stressing the need to “find the right balance between what can be done locally and what needs to be done globally”, believing that when that occurs, “then we’ve got the basis for a global and a local economy that work together for the benefit of the planet and its people.”

If you’re interested in learning more about how to transition your town, or if a transition effort is already in place, this link provides information on transition training. U.S. residents can find details on domestic transition efforts here . I think the cast and crew of Northern Exposure would approve of Transition Towns and their goals. Recognizing the importance of developing a sense of community and recreating connections within that community in order to tend to the welfare of all is a theme stressed both within the series and in the Transition Town movement. I know I’m inspired. What about you? -ashley

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